Tuesday, September 5, 2017

I really like book blogging, but I think it has kind of run its course for me... I'm trying to start doing things that make me happy and somewhere along the line, blogging about books seems to have stopped being one of those things. I still love reading, and I still love talking about books but... I'm starting to feel like book blogging is not something I love doing anymore, somehow?

I think part of the problem is how formal and kind of... undynamic(?) the structure of the blog feels. This is a long and rambling way of saying I'll probably be pretty inactive for the next month or so, both because I'm going to kind of be reflecting, as well as because classes start up. So. Hiatus! For. A time?

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Whew! I'm still behind, but I've got a couple more hours tonight to read so I shouldn't be too behind... (I say, hopefully). It's kind of the home stretch now, isn't it?

Things really start to come together in this one... it's always fantastic to read a book series that lays the groundwork really well. All that foreshadowing, coming to fruition! Obviously we see a lot of that in the last book, but we get some of it in the fifth and sixth books as the overarching plot really picks up.

It's one of the reasons these books are really a great choice for a reread- there's foreshadowing and hints that are so subtle they don't really register until you go back through the series knowing what happens. (I mean, I also just really like rereading, that too. And it really is just a great series overall. Basically there are lots of reasons that I reread this as often as I do... mainly just overall that I still get something out of the reading experience, every time I reread.)

With respect to this cover... all there of the covers that I've experienced this book with, it's been some permutation of this scene. Maybe because one could argue that it really is the only big classic-adventure-y action bit in the book? A lot still happens in this book (a lot of a lot) but visually it probably is the most impressive part of book. (Unless the think on the UK edition is supposed to be the Pensive? But I don't think so. The Pensive wasn't green.)

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Also known as the day I get to talk about my current favourite Harry Potter book. It has been the reigning fave for the past... 5 years or so, so it's probably safe to say that it's just overall my favourite.

And if you're thinking "but Kelly, it's objectively the angry and sad one, how is it your favourite?" then 1) you must be new here and 2) welcome to my blog, I swear I also like happy books sometimes! (Probably).

Anyway.

Book 5!Harry Potter and the You Can't Trust The Mainstream Media and the Government is Lying to You. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I'm not sure if I can fully articulate why this one is kind of my favourite... I think it has something to do with it being our first real view of exactly what resisting Voldemort is going to take. We get small glimpses of it earlier on, when Sirius talks about what it was like to be in the resistance when Voldemort was first powerful, but... this is a prolonged experience with it. This whole book is one that drives home the vast difference between what is right and what is easy.

I think what really makes this book for me is the DA. Both the DA itself and the sentiment behind it. That, even when they've got an evil person gaining power, and people being killed, when they've got the media covering it up, and are under constant internal threat from Umbridge, who keeps making things more and more difficult for them with her Executive Orders Educational Decrees, there are still those people who will stand up and do something. Also it has monster horses, which are kind of my jam, not going to lie.

Friday, July 28, 2017

I'm a touch behind today, but given that it's a 600+ page book and I had several things to do for school, I'm pleased with my progress. I should have time to catch up tomorrow, before I start Order of the Phoenix (which has the biggest page count of the series... tomorrow is going to be an adventure).

Goblet of Fire hasn't ever really been my favourite book (I mean, I really like them all, obviously, I wouldn't be trying to reread a series in a week of I didn't like it). That honour alternately belongs to books 2, 5, 6, or 7, depending on my mood.

That said, I do really like the glimpses we get of characters from beyond Hogwarts. This book is also where we really start to see what will wind up being a fairly significant theme for the second half of the series (and especially in the next book)- that we can't always trust mainstream news sources, or all authority figures. This is something that, of course, really gets built upon in the next book... and I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll go on (and on) more about that tomorrow. Or at some point. Some time.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

All caught up! As a prize I get to write an essay tomorrow. And also read a 600 page book. This will be fine.

I feel like this one is tougher on my emotions every time I read it... partly because we start to get a little more detail on the backstory surrounding Harry's parents, and also because we meet Remus and Sirius. This is, I think, where the darkness starts to creep in around the edges of the story a little, and where we really start to see movement in the overall plot of the series.

The first two books have fairly uncomplicated triumphs at the end of each book, but in this one we don't get that so much- the ending is horrible or sad, but we do see our characters not entirely win.

Also this cover is really pretty. I for some reason associate this book with autumn and autumn colours, but I do really like the blue tones on this one. Also both my copies of this book have covers that are kind of spoiler-y, in that they feature a scene that happens toward the very end of the story. Also also I know the lighting isn't ideal in this one, I waited too long and the natural light was gone and I had to use electric lighting and it wasn't ideal. I know.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Today I started The Chamber of Secrets, but things were a little unexpected today, so I didn't get to finish it. I'm going to try and catch up tomorrow, as well as get through The Prisoner of Azkaban. Fortunately I haven't got much going on tomorrow, so I should have time to devote to reading!

I love the colour scheme of the new cover of Chamber of Secrets! (Okay, I'm just a really big fan of green covers. Bring me ALL of the green covers.)

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

I've listened to the audiobook so many times that when I start reading Philosopher's Stone, my inner reading voice (which I usually don't really notice at all) sounds like Jim Dale. If you haven't checked out the Harry Potter audiobooks, definitely do it you get a chance! (The Jim Dale ones. Not the other ones. No offense to the other narrator, but he's just... not Jim Dale.)

I'm doing this a little differently this year... ordinarily I would try to do a book a day, but given the differences in length, I'm going to try to finish the first three in two days to give myself more time for the rest. (Not sure how that will go... we'll see).

I'm a bit more of a critical reader now than when I first read this one at the age of... eight, I think, but I still really enjoy it! I mean, it's where everything starts, and I have so much positive nostalgia linked to it that I'll probably always really like it.